Fairy Lights

by Lorn, Edward

  What struck Brenda the hardest was James’s use of “we” and “us,” as if their relationship hadn’t gone up in flames quicker than the Hindenburg. As if finding the porn on his tablet hadn’t been a stake to her heart. She considered what she’d given up. Here was a man willing to still think of himself and his ex-wife as a team. A man who was defending her to their son, talking her up as if she deserved the Mother of the Year award.

  The dingy image of an emotionless young woman popped into Brenda’s head. She saw in striking clarity the girl’s still-maturing body. Her long straight chestnut hair. The thin tuft between her legs. The nipples that were almost as large as the breasts themselves. Those vacant eyes…

  Brenda grew nauseated just thinking about it. But she kept the image there, at the forefront of her mind, to strengthen her. She would not think nicely of James. She would continue to think of him as a monster. That way, she would be prepared should James’s desires escalate.

  She typed Thanks dad, pressed SEND, deleted the conversation, and then powered down the phone to save its battery. She wasn’t sure if Tony had remember his phone’s car charger. She wanted to make sure the cell had some juice should an emergency arise.

  The phone’s screen went black.

  In the reflection of the phone, she saw someone behind her. She spun on the log. Her forehead seemed to catch fire. Warm liquid sheeted her face as she screamed her terror and agony to the forest animals and anyone else willing to listen.

  18

  The blade dealt a glancing blow across the woman’s forehead, peeling it like an orange. She’d turned at probably the worst possible moment, just as Moss swung the blade, and now look at her. What was supposed to be a clean strike to the back of her head had made a mess of her face.

  She dove forward off the log on which she’d been sitting, went sprawling for a second before flipping herself over to face Moss again. She wailed like the trucks that came whenever someone’s campfire got out of control. Swiping blood from her eyes, she attempted to locate her attacker—namely Moss. Her fingers found the loose flap of skin that dangling from her face like a page half torn from a book. This caused her to scream louder.

  Moss had to do something quick. If he allowed her to scream like this for too long, someone might come. And that would spoil everything.

  Moss raised the blade over his head. He leaped over the log. Fell onto his prey.

  19

  Brenda was on her back when he came, and she got her leg up just in time. Her attacker landed on her foot, balls first. A high squeak issued from the man (actually he looked more like a boy—a filthy, bloody boy in a park ranger’s uniform shirt) and the machete he’d used to carve her forehead from her face stuck into the ground beside her.

  She brought her other leg up to her chest and struck out, kicking the boy in the gut this time. He rolled backward, off her foot. She fought to sit up. Her abdominal muscles seemed to have weakened in such a short period of time. When was the last time she’d done a sit up? She couldn’t be this out of shape. She rocked forward again and this time her stomach muscles helped her to sit upright.

  The dirty boy was leaning against a tree, clutching his injured balls in one hand and his stomach with the other. He retched and a torrent of red goo, stuff that Brenda didn’t want to believe was meat and blood, exploded from his mouth. She did not wait for him to recover. She snatched the machete out of the ground beside her and used the log to help shove herself to a standing position.

  He came at her screeching like a randy monkey. She did not retreat. Instead, she stood her ground. Swung the machete back. Whipped it forward.

  The blade caught the boy in the clavicle, bit into bone and became stuck. The boy howled like a wolf, just like the werewolves in the movies Brenda had been so fond of as a kid.

  He punched her hard in the breast. The strike knocked the air from her and she stumbled back. She crashed into a tree but did not fall. Whatever she did, she knew she must not fall. Not again. Falling would mean the death of her.

  She’d let go of the machete when the boy had punched her in the tit. She was once again weaponless.

  Blood threatened to blind her again. She scooped gore from her burning eyes in time to see the blurry image of her attacker wrench the machete from his shoulder. He howled again—a shapeshifter worshiping the moon—and charged her.

  Stupidly, she raised a hand in defense, as if she were awaiting a high five from a buddy. The boy brought the blade down between the middle and ring finger of her left hand. The wickedly sharp machete sliced clean through to mid forearm. She screamed until something broke in her throat. Her scream turned to choking, and she had just enough time to think that this was such a stupid way to die—choking on a scream.

  The boy ripped the machete from her arm and immediately swung again, this time in a high sideways slash.

  She was aware of being able to draw breath one instant, of choking, and then not being able to the next. Her head listed to the left and her body crumpled beneath her. She landed in a pile on the forest floor and died in a puddle of her own blood.

  20

  Moss had damn near cut the woman’s head completely off. Had he been an inch closer, he might have. The blade was so sharp, it treated flesh like air and bone like cloud.

  He dropped the blade and clutched his left shoulder with his right hand. The wound was bad, a good hand deep and two fingers wide. The weight of his limp arm threatened to pull the wound open farther, so Moss cradled his injured arm with his good one.

  He was dizzy all of a sudden. Dizzy and sick. Couldn’t stand. What was wrong with him? He’d cut himself before. Why was this time so bad?

  He turned, tried to step back over the log, tried to return to where he’d left the sack containing the pieces of Handsome and the old man, but his legs were not having it. He collapsed over the log. A remnant of branch stabbed his stomach, drew blood, but Moss didn’t acknowledge it. He had bigger problems. Oddly enough, his shoulder didn’t hurt. It was numb. He was numb. All over. And so cold.

  He watched with stunned interest as blood poured from his shoulder onto the dead leaves scattered about the forest floor. So much blood. Thinking it might help, Moss scooped blood into his cupped hand and drank it. He felt he needed to get it back inside him. Certainly it was important that all this blood stay on the inside.

  He vomited a thick stream of crimson. Chunks of the old man floated in his emesis. Moss picked them up and stuffed them back into his mouth. He needed food. He needed energy. He was so sleepy. So sleepy. So…

  The fairy lights come again a week after four-year-old Moss saw them outside his bedroom window and chased them into the woods. Moss is showering with Daddy and he can see the swirling lights in the small window at the top of the shower.

  “Pretty, ain’t they?” Daddy asks as he washes Moss between the legs. “They’re fireflies, buddy. Maybe after we’re all cleaned up, we can catch some in a jar. Whatcha think?”

  Moss nods fervently.

  “Good deal. Now turn around, buddy. Let me clean your bum-bum.”

  Later, after they are all dried off and dressed again, he and Daddy go in search of the fairy lights. Mom doesn’t come. She’s asleep. Moss will never see his mother again.

  The woods are dark. The world seems to be overrun by shadows, and little Moss is scared. He’s terrified. Breathing rapidly. Sweating. But Dad tugs him on.

  A few yards into the dark woods, Moss spots the fairy lights, the things his father has called “fireflies” and he looses a delightful squeal. The fairy lights stop swirling, focus on him. They float over, as if to say hello.

  Dad is tugging on Moss’s arm. He’s murmuring something about how these aren’t fireflies. How they must be something else. And oh God, what is that? That thing in the trees.

  All at once, the fairy lights blink out. Dark falls like a tidal wave making landfall. Something drops onto Dad. Moss can hear them struggling, his father and…and…whatever has fallen out of the t
ree. Dad’s screaming. The Mason jar Dad brought to catch fireflies in shatters. Now Dad’s gurgling. And then he’s silent.

  Moss can hear chewing.

  The small boy doesn’t have his night eyes yet. He strains to see in the dark, but the afterimages of the fairy lights are burned into his vision. Something cold and slimy grips the top of his head, turns him so that he is looking away from where his father was before the lights went out.

  The fairy lights reappear. They bid him follow and he follows. He follows them into a cave where he will learn the rules of the thing he will come to think of as the Handy.

  Over the next ten years, the boy is trained. Moss is smart and learns quickly. Though the Handy does not like to be seen, the boy sees it on occasion. The boy is not scared of death. The boy is scared of becoming like the Handy. He thinks that would be a fate far worse than death.

  Death would be a mercy.

  Draped over the log like a shirt on a clothesline, Moss stopped breathing. His heart froze in his chest. Before his brain ceased to process images, he saw a mass of flying things hovering a few feet away. The creatures, each one no bigger than Moss’s thumb, seemed interested in the bag of body parts. They were so pretty. Small flying things, horned and fanged, with silken black wings and skeletal gray bodies. Funny, they looked nothing like the Handy. Nothing at all.

  Part Two: Fairy Lights

  1

  The boys swam for what felt like thirty minutes, which actually turned out to be more like two hours. Though neither teen had a clock of any kind on their person (who needed a wrist watch in the age of cell phones and tablet computers?) Bobby knew the day had progressed further than he’d first assumed. The sun overhead told that much.

  Bobby pushed out of the water and spun to sit on the edge. Sharp rock dug into the back of his thighs but did not cut. He watched Tony dive down into the water, swim to the bank, and shove up onto dry land. Tony was out of breath and red in the cheeks.

  “Dude,” Tony said, settling down next to Bobby on the shore. “This place is cool.”

  Bobby only nodded. He leaned back on his elbows, but kept his legs in the water. He gazed down his front, over his abs, which glistened wetly in the sun. It felt great to chill here, under the sun with a warm breeze playing through the trees. So much better than running around in the city. He thought he finally understood the draw of camping. Being away from industry and technology wasn’t such a bad thing.

  Bobby’s father had told him on several occasions that the woods were for white people. If you ever found a black dude in the woods he could very well be dangling from a tree branch. Bobby thought his father paranoid. There was seventy years and eighteen hundred miles between him and Jim Crow, and Bobby loved that he’d never seen a rebel flag in person. The recent hullabaloo over whether or not the confederate flag was a symbol of state’s rights or a symbol of hate struck Bobby funny. Because it was both: a symbol of the state’s right to be racist. But Bobby and his family lived in southern California. Sure, racism was alive and well here in the west, but it was nothing like the beer-swilling, cross-burning, rebel-flag-flying, incestuous south. As long as the rednecks stayed on their end of the United States, Bobby thought life would continue to be good, and his father—good old paranoid Dad—could live in the shadow of ignorance instead of in complete fear.

  “You ever wonder why gay people wanted to be able to be married so bad? I mean, married fuckers are miserable,” Tony said as he picked at his belly button.

  Bobby chuckled. “Really? That’s what you’re choosing to talk about?”

  “Why not?”

  “Okay, fine. Maybe because they wanted to be treated like everyone else.”

  “That shit’s overrated. I don’t want to be like everyone else. And fuck marriage, man. That shit’s gay.”

  “Well, it is now.”

  It was Tony’s turn to laugh. “Ha! I know, right? I don’t give a shit what hole somebody sticks there dick in as long as it doesn’t belong to me.”

  “That’s very forward thinking of you, Tone.”

  “I know. I’m future-minded and shit. Like, one of these days, none of this shit is going to matter. I mean, lookit black folks and water fountains and shit.”

  “Huh?” Bobby thought he’d translated Bobby’s unique language properly, but he wanted to make sure. “Are you equating Black’s not being able to drink from white water fountains with gay marriage?”

  “Isn’t it the same thing? It’s all about people being treated the same way, right? Whether it’s sucking water from the fancy fountain or sucking another dude’s dick, it’s about being able to suck without people sticking their noses in your Kool-Aid. Look, I see why my dad and the conversationalists want to keep booty-humpers from booty-humping, but I see the other side’s point too.”

  “Conservatives, not conversationalists. One’s a republican, and the other one likes to talk.”

  “There’s a difference?” Tony looked confused.

  “Good point. Carry on.”

  “Anyway, so these warhogs—that’s what my mother calls them—don’t want fags to get fag married because it’s against God, or some shit. They think it shits on the sanctuary of marriage.”

  Sanctuary. Sanctity. Whatever. Bobby didn’t bother correcting his friend this time.

  Tony continued: “But what the fuck does that matter, right? If fags wanna wear rings and take half of each other’s shit in the divorce, I say let them.”

  “I’m sure they appreciate your support. You calling them ‘fags’ is sure to please them, too.”

  “They don’t mind it, for real. They call each other fags all the time. Ever watch RuPaul’s Drag Race? Bitches on there say ‘fag’ like once every two minutes. It’s, like, in the script or whatever. As long as you don’t call them ‘faggots,’ it’s righteous. Calling someone a ‘faggot’ is just rude.”

  “Next thing you’re going to tell me is that it’s okay to call me a ‘nigga’ as long as you don’t slap the E-R on the end.”

  “Is it?” Tony asked, hopefully.

  “No.”

  “Damn. Oh well. It was worth a try, my nigga.”

  Bobby slugged him in the arm. Tony rubbed his bicep and laughed.

  When his laughter subsided, Tony asked, “You ready? I’m hungry as balls.”

  “Don’t see why not.”

  “Cool.”

  The boys stood up and collected their clothes from the trunk where they’d left them.

  Tony paused, looking around.

  Bobby noticed the concern on Tony’s face and asked, “What?”

  “Which way did we come in?”

  Bobby scanned the tree line and saw four different trails, all no more than five or six feet apart. He guessed that they’d arrived by way of one of the middle trails, but there was no way to be sure.

  “Footprints!” Tony erupted. “We had to have left footprints in the dirt, right?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Good one.” Bobby said, his heart rate decreasing almost immediately.

  They approached the first trail and found plenty of trampled grass and disturbed dirt, but no defined prints.

  “Lemme see the bottom of your shoes.” Tony asked. Bobby held them up for his friend to see.

  “I don’t see anything that looks like your tread. Let’s check out the next one.”

  The next trailhead was the same. Trampled grass. Mounds of disturbed dirt. No definite prints.

  Third verse same as the first.

  “How?” Bobby asked. “How the fuck did we not leave tracks?”

  Tony shrugged, and for the first time, Bobby saw fear in his buddy’s eyes.

  2

  “Mom!” Tony yelled until his voice cracked in the middle like a bridge with snapped suspension wires. “MOM!”

  “Will she hear us from here?” Bobby asked.

  “Fuck if I know,” Tony shot back.

  “Calm down. This is 2016. This is America. Someone is bound to come along, right?”

&nb
sp; “Ever seen The Blair Witch Project?”

  “What does that have to do—”

  “They said the same thing. ‘Someone’s bound to come along. This is America,’ or some shit.”

  “That was a movie that came out when we were in diapers.”

  “So what? All that shit is based on truth.”

  Bobby gave Tony a look that Tony didn’t much care for. That look said, “That’s the stupidest shit to have ever fallen out your cocksucker.”

  Tony continued: “What I’m saying is, people get lost in the woods all the goddamned time, dude. Like now. Like us. We’re lost.”

  “We’re not lost,” Bobby said. “We just don’t know which trail to take.”

  It was Tony’s turn to shoot Bobby a look. “What’s the difference?”

  “Right. True. Okay. So what now?”

  “I keep screaming, I guess.”

  “Right. Make it do what it do.”

  Tony sucked in a great lungful of air, and then: “MOOOOOOOOOOM!”

  Nothing.

  No return yell.

  No sign of life through the trees.

  Not so much as a squirrel fart.

  They were fucked.

  “We’re fucked,” Tony said.

  “How far do you think we walked?” Bobby asked.

  “Why?”

  “Because, if we can judge how far we came, we can judge how far we should go down each trail before turning around and coming back.”

  “There’s no way of telling,” Tony said, running a hand through his damp hair. His clothes, which were clutched to his wet chest, had become dark with water. He might as well have put them on as soon as he’d gotten out of the water. “Even if we figure out how far we went, what happens if we go down the wrong path and that path branches.”